Cleveland Developers, Pols Push for Historic Tax Credit Renewal

Former Republican Governor Bob Taft signed the Historic Preservation Tax Credit into law during his final days in office in 2006. The program was touted as a way to spur development and create jobs by helping developers get tax credits to offset the costs of rehabbing historic buildings. Across the state 111 projects - including 14 on Cleveland's Euclid corridor - have used the tax credit, leveraging $1.2 billion in private investment. Backers like Thomas Yablonsky, executive director of the Historic Gateway Neighborhood Corporation, say projects that receive the tax credit are a net positive for communities and the state.

Thomas Yablonsky: If you can account for all the spending the credit itself brings in with a project you can prove - and other states have done it - the credit more than pays for itself. But you still have to allocate the dollars you've given away in theory in the bidget snd as we go into obviously a state budget that's uncertain we have to find room for this tax credit somewhere.

The state is facing an $8 to $10 billion budget shortfall Yablonsky says he and other advocates are working on shoring up legislative support for the credit.